What Matters? Competition

Year 5-12 students, please speak up for animals!

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Veggie Veronica NSW • Posts: 108

1 26 Mar 2014

What Matters? is a writing competition that gives Year 5 – 12 students in NSW, ACT and TAS (TAS has a separate What Matters? competition) a chance to say what matters to them in society today. And I'm writing about animals! Live export to be specific. I am writing here to encourage you to have a go at doing this. The winners get some awesome prizes & opportunities, and everyone gets a nice certificate. The winning opinion pieces are posted on the Internet. This is an amazing way to express our opinions on matters to do with animals. You have till May 6, 2014 to get your entry in.

So, what to do?

Write a 400-600 word opinion piece on what matters to you and why. Entries must be typed on A4 paper.One entry per student. All entries must be accompanied by a signed entry form.
And now, the prizes:

Prizes are awarded in 4 categories: Years 5/6, 7/8, 9/10 and 11/12.

- $350 for each category winner and $200 for each category runner-up. Winners and runners-up will receive their prize at an awards ceremony, following their participation in a Young Writers Forum run by The Writing Workshop, in August 2014, at the University of Western Sydney’s Parramatta campus. Finalists’ entries will be published in print and online.

- The Years 5/6 and7/8 category winners will each receive a full-day creative writing workshop donated by The Writing Workshop, conducted by award-winning author Bernard Cohen.

- The Year 9/10 category winner will be invited to spend a day at the Inspire Foundation, meeting the ReachOut.com Crew and receiving professional training. They will also be offered the opportunity to be paid $200 to produce a feature article for the ReachOut.com website.

- The Year 11/12 category winner will receive a 1 Year Membership to the NSW Writers' Centre, and the opportunity to participate in a one-day writing workshop donated by the NSW Writers' Centre. The Year 11/12 category winner will also receive a book voucher to the value of $100.

And, announced at the Awards Ceremony, the overall competition winner gets an Ipad! (Including TAS)
NSW & ACT:
http://www.whitlam.org/the_program/what_matters_writing_competition/what_matters_2014
TAS (at the bottom of the page):
http://www.education.tas.gov.au/Students/schools-colleges/Pages/Awards---Scholarships.aspx

Hope to see some of your entries!

tiedyedtofu NSW • Posts: 221

2 26 Mar 2014

I entered this last year and I want to enter it this year. This was mine from last year:

"There will come a time when humans will communicate with certain animals. I am not sure we are prepared for what they have to say to us.”
- Anthony Douglas Williams

The lights dim, the crowd sits on the edge of their seats straining their eyes to see in the pitch-black tent. A voice rings out from the darkness. “Welcome! Welcome! Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls. Here you will see wonders that will shock you and excite you. You will see things that are only seen in your imagination. Welcome to the circus”! The lights go on. Parents and children gasp. On stage are three beautiful elephants, adorned in shining jewels. The crowd waits with anticipation, music begins and the elephants are off! They dance and perform tricks. The crowd goes wild, screaming and shouting for more and more. The children laugh and clap. But do they look into the eyes of the elephant or are they to busy watching the ball that is balanced at the tip of its trunk? Do they notice the fear in the elephant’s eyes?

Behind closed doors these intelligent elephants are subjected to horrifying cruelty. Baby elephants are taken from their mothers and are trained to perform unnatural tricks. Training routines are far from easy and rewarding. The elephants are whipped, poked and jabbed with sharp sticks or bull hooks. A video from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) showed the Ringling Bros beating elephants, screaming at the elephants to perform tricks that no animal should have to do. Do we have a right to use animals in this way?

Nearby another show is just about to begin, once again the crowd waits in anticipation, children squirm in their seats. Music begins and the orcas and dolphins come out, splashing the audience with their flippers. Children scream in excitement. But these orcas and dolphins have spent their whole life in barren water tanks. It would be like you living in your bathroom, only to come out to be traumatized by a screaming crowd. These shows are so popular that the demand of live dolphins is large. These dolphins are taken from the wild and the hundreds of dolphins not selected for live sale are killed inhumanely for meat. This is what matters to me. Do we have right to treat animals in such way? To condemn these animals to a life in a cage? Dolphins and orcas can travel up to 100 miles a day. In a tank they go round in circles, no freedom at all.

The only thing that keeps these shows running is the money that you give them. Without the money the shows would end. It’s as easy as that. If we all stopped giving money to these shows then this cruelty would end. The animals don’t have a voice. We are the only ones that can end this. I believe that one day in the near future these animals will perform for the last and final time.

Once the money stops coming, the shows will end. Instead of a ticket to the circus or the dolphin show, you will be buying a different ticket.

Their ticket to freedom.